The process of distance learning hits everyone. It is difficult for teachers to stay in contact with students, to keep attention, to control discipline, it is necessary to master new applications and programs. Distance learning is also a big challenge for the family: parents are not used to taking over the functions of the school even partly. Children need to master the program, organize their own time, and remember to communicate with their peers – all online. Let’s understand the problems in more detail with the experts of write my essay for me service.
Problems of distance learning
It’s hard to keep students’ attention
When giving lessons at school, teachers often use non-verbal tricks to keep students’ attention. They may stand up, walk around the classroom, pat the student on the shoulder, show distance or height on objects. It’s harder to do this remotely. And kids basically can’t be fully concentrated for all minutes of a lesson in a row.
What to do?
Our brains work in waves – a period of focused work alternates with periods of relaxation. Take breaks for 3-5 minutes every 15-20 minutes: interesting tasks, funny videos, small tasks involving movement or motor response.
- Make lessons more multimedia. Add illustrations, infographics, short videos, educational quests, and didactic online games. Alternate working with the monitor and doing tasks on paper.
- When teaching a video lesson, ask students to turn on the video to increase contact and understand the response to what you’re saying. Help children learn how to work on their chosen platform by devoting special time to it or sending video tutorials.
- Make sure nothing distracts their attention. It is good if you lead the webinar on a white, monochrome, or blurred background so that children do not look at the details behind your back.
- Comment on your actions, so it’s clear what you’re doing at the moment: “Now I’m switching slides, solving problems with the sound, turning on the demonstration screen.” This way you keep the audience’s attention.
- Take time at the beginning of the lesson to announce what is going to happen. What is the intended lesson topic and activity? What goals do you want to accomplish?
- Pay special attention to feedback. Summarize the interim results of a particular task, discuss the achievements of the whole group, or emphasize the successes of a particular child. At the end, summarize what was accomplished from what you had planned.
Lack of emotional contact
When working online, teachers have to work more with intonation, gestures to get students’ attention, articulate and spell words clearly to compensate for communication interference. It takes a lot of energy and effort.
What to do?
Don’t be afraid to seem funny or ridiculous. Kids love to fool around, encourage them to do so by taking your mind off the topic for a minute. This will diffuse the situation and build rapport.
Pay special attention to students who are not interested in learning, hyperactive. The neuropsychologist recommends addressing them by name at the beginning of the task, asking if everything is clear to them. This is important to help them get organized and engage in the activity.
Self-organization
Children are bad at allocating time and keeping track of schedules and deadlines. They need help from adults, teachers, and parents.
What to do?
- Teach children to make a to-do list for each day. It is important to separate them by priority. Crossing them out will help them realize how many important tasks they managed to accomplish.
- Make their own daily and weekly schedules. For example, a unified electronic class schedule with links to Zoom conferences and notifications of the beginning of classes.
- Ask children to remove everything unnecessary from their workplace: especially their cell phones. Even for adults, being able to check social networks and messengers is a big temptation.
- Set regular alarm clocks which will act as a “bell”: they will help not to miss the beginning and end of the lesson.
- It is important not to forget to leave time in your own schedule for walks and favorite interesting activities. Read more about time management for teachers in our other article.
- Suggest that children use special applications on their phones and computers so that they can control their own time spent at the computer, playing games, or browsing social media.
Advice to parents – if your child can’t get his or her act together and complete a writing assignment, don’t neglect thecheap essay writing service. Help your child with his or her distance learning assignments.
The technical part
Conducting lessons online seems to be a very challenging task, especially at the beginning of the journey. Resources can’t keep up, Zoom and Microsoft Teams don’t lend themselves to it the first time, and students sometimes can’t get online because they don’t have a gadget.
What to do?
An important first step for teachers is to choose the most comfortable learning platform and test it at a parent-teacher meeting and then instruct the children.
Conduct a trial session with kids in Zoom or Microsoft Teams, test all the features of the platform: videos, presentations, questioning, room divisions. Gather feedback from students and parents about the different options for delivering lessons online.
If possible, contact the school principal with a list of children who need the gadget to work with during the pandemic.
